Expensive Alice,
My timeline is crammed with individuals mourning your loss – some individuals who knew you, however most (like me) who by no means had the honour. You made the world a greater place. As I learn in regards to the influence you had on so many individuals, I hold circling again to all of the methods you had been a beacon for me.
Once you gained the McArthur Genius Award in 2024, you reminded us of the facility of storytelling, the way it ‘is a robust type of resistance. It leaves proof that we had been right here in a society that devalues, excludes and eliminates us.’ The Incapacity Visibility undertaking – web site and anthology – was a number of the first content material I learn once I dove into incapacity group and tradition. Your memoir, ‘Yr of the Tiger,’ is arguably a very powerful disabled bible we’ve. I return to the Incapacity Intimacy anthology, flicking by means of its pages, discovering solace in its paragraphs, at any time when I really feel the burden of ableism dragging me down. And we’re fortunate to have extra of your writing to carry us on darkish days.
Your subsequent – last – anthology ‘Incapacity Vulnerability’ is scheduled for launch early subsequent yr. Satirically, it ‘explores the precarity of life within the disabled group, specializing in the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing fallout.’ Usually, it feels futile to put in writing or discuss in regards to the ongoing pandemic. I’m often the one one that masks in any given room. You couldn’t put on a masks, however you had been vocal in regards to the want for COVID precautions. You amplified the voices of individuals with Lengthy COVID and refused to allow them to be forgotten. I hope, in your honour, extra individuals will masks, will keep dwelling if they’ve COVID signs, will contemplate air flow and air high quality, as you urged us to.
Alice, I’ve a confession to make: I’d supposed to complete this piece days in the past, however spasms and fatigue received in the way in which. At first, I used to be indignant at my physique and myself – why couldn’t I simply push by means of? However that perspective is the antithesis of what you taught us, a transparent contradiction to the incapacity delight you embodied. As an alternative, I requested an extension and determined to indicate myself some grace. You inspired us to bask within the prospects of crip time, to embrace the nonlinearity of our lives. I’m writing these phrases with the brightness on my laptop computer turned as little as it should go, with a warmth pack on my legs, taking as many breaks as I really feel I would like. Alice, I’m making an attempt. Creating my very own mini crip revolution.
Commercial
When so many incapacity organisations in Australia and world wide had been disgracefully silent in regards to the genocide in Palestine, you confirmed us the that means of incapacity justice. You articulated, time and time once more, in your personal phrases and by platforming these of disabled Palestinian and Jewish writers, that incapacity rights are inextricably linked to the rights of all different marginalised teams, particularly Palestinians. When world leaders shrugged their shoulders (with the Australian Prime Minister deflecting duty on the premise that Australia “isn’t a serious participant within the Center East”), you asserted that collective liberation is everybody’s duty. You balanced your advocacy with the understanding that displaying up appears totally different for all of us, and that, “ everybody can do one thing with the time, vitality, and sources they’ve.” By means of Crips for eSims for Gaza, together with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Jane Shi and a crew of volunteers, you bought over 20,000 eSims. Crips for eSims for Gaza has to date obtained extra than $3 million in donations. In a Substack message, Leah and Jane have dedicated to persevering with and documenting the work you probably did collectively.
So many disabled writers – together with me – are assured sufficient to consider within the price of our phrases and our lives – as a result of of you.
After I nervous about whether or not I might be an excellent cat mum, I considered you and the one you love Bert and Ernie, how I might by no means query your price as their mum. It could be an insult to you and all incapacity advocates – previous and current – to consider my very own internalised ableism. I adopted my darling Giles and if something, I feel he likes having a disabled mum who rests quite a bit.
Thanks, Alice. I hope you knew how a lot you meant to so many individuals. I hope you knew that you just modified the world. You is likely to be gone from this realm, however your legacy lives on.
I promise that we gained’t let the bastards get us down. We’ll give them Hell as a substitute.
Yours in crip solidarity,
Laura Pettenuzzo
Laura’s photograph: Provided (Picture Description: Laura is smiling with one hand holding up her chin. She wears watermelon-shaped earrings.)
Alice’s photograph: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Basis; Inventive Commons Attribution 4.0 worldwide license (Picture Description: a detailed up of Alice smiling whereas sitting in a wheelchair. She wears a pink and orange prime.)
Laura Pettenuzzo is a disabled author and accessible communication knowledgeable dwelling on Wurundjeri nation. Her phrases have appeared in locations reminiscent of SBS, The Age, and Griffith Assessment.
You possibly can observe Laura on Instagram: @thisgirl_writes
